It is known to equip motor vehicles, in particular commercial vehicles, with systems for controlling and/or regulating the driving dynamics such as, for example, an electronic stability system (ESP) or an electronically controlled braking system (EBS), in the case of which the mass of the motor vehicle is used as a control parameter.
Since motor vehicles, in particular commercial vehicles, have a large load variance between empty and fully loaded vehicles, an overall mass determination based on estimation is not accurate enough. As a rule, however, no sensors are available for determining the vehicle mass. Consequently, the current vehicle mass must be estimated on the basis of calculation using suitable algorithms.
In order to determine the vehicle mass, it is known to determine the mass m from the equation of motion according to Newton's second law:m*a=FA−FL−FR−FSt  (1).
Here, m is the total vehicle mass, a the vehicle acceleration, FA the driving force, FL the air resistance, FR the rolling resistance and FSt the slope resistance.
However, it is disadvantageous that the slope angle α of the roadway is usually not known for the determination of the slope resistance FSt. Furthermore, to calculate the driving force FA it is necessary to know the drivetrain transmission ratio, which in turn presupposes knowledge of the gearbox transmission ratio and axle drive ratio.